Doctor jailed for 22 years.

A paedophile doctor who abused young cancer patients at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, has been jailed for 22 years.

Myles Bradbury, 41 admitted abusing 18 children in his care between 2009 and 2013. In total he admitted 25 offences, including six counts of sexual assault, 13 counts of engaging in sexual activity with a child, three of causing, or inciting, a child to engage in sexual activity, voyeurism, two charges of making indecent images of a child and of possessing more than 16,000 indecent images.

The images of his victims, some of whom had haemophilia, leukaemia and other serious illnesses, were gathered at Addenbrooke's Hospital.

In sentencing him at Cambridge Crown Court, Judge Gareth Hawkesworth told Bradbury that his actions amounted to a "prolonged, carefully planned, cruel and persistent campaign of abuse." He added that Bradbury’s offences were a "gross and grotesque breach of trust.”

In passing sentence, he said: "In many years' experience on the bench, I have never come across a more culpable or grave course of sexual criminality which has involved such a gross and grotesque breach and betrayal of your Hippocratic Oath and trust reposed in you by your patients, their families and colleagues."

The hospital's chief executive, Dr Keith McNeil, said: "Our thoughts are with our patients and families who were victims of Bradbury's shocking and cynical abuse. This sentence cannot undo the damage he caused but he is finally behind bars and is no longer a risk to vulnerable children."

Canadian authorities had alerted the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) in July 2012 that Bradbury had bought a DVD containing indecent images of children, but Ceop did not pass on the information until November 2013.

Michelle Brown, head of the CPS Rape and Serious Sexual Offences Unit (RASSO), said: "This paedophile doctor took advantage of his young patients battling serious illness by systematically sexually abusing them. Such cruelty is unimaginable to most of us."

Det Supt Gary Ridgway, from Cambridgeshire Police, said: "This case has understandably caused distress to many people. Bradbury was revered by the families of his victims who trusted him implicitly but he betrayed them in an appalling way, by carrying out examinations purely for his own sexual gratification."

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